


Rollin with the punches (They just keep coming)

by SwiftyTheWriter



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Kate-Centric, One Shot, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5982571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwiftyTheWriter/pseuds/SwiftyTheWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I had no choice.” She said quietly.</p><p>“We all have choices.”</p><p>“Not me.”</p><p> </p><p>Kate decided to move on with her life after her brother's murder spree in Bethel. Flash forward three years. See how well that works out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rollin with the punches (They just keep coming)

Kate Fuller was bored as hell and she really wanted a cigarette.

She had been in the holding cell for about four hours ever since a job went wrong and she realized being caught was better than a shot to the head. The cops were amenable to her decision. Apparently they had been looking for her for while now. Over three years, actually.

Ever since she started pulling jobs and running cons up and down the cost.

Her actual arrest shouldn’t come as a shock to her. It really was just a matter of time before they caught up to her. She hadn’t exactly been subtle.

Still, there was only so much self reflecting a girl could do while staring through bars at a blank wall. She couldn’t even yell at her ‘partners’ that got her stuck in this fucking mess in the first place. They were either arrested or somewhere beginning to rot by now. She wasn’t sure which she preferred.

“The latter,” She thought. “Definitely the latter.”

It had been a simple job. A jewelry store. Easy security system. In an out in under ten minutes.

But while she had her hands full with the security system, the idiots she worked with failed to notice one of the hostages inside the store was a undercover cop before it was too late. She had come into the tail end of a firefight between two of her guys and a large group of police. The third one of her guys was on the floor with a hole in his head and his typical clueless expression. So, she did what anyone would’ve done and left them to fend for themselves while she slipped out the back.

Sadly the cops had the back covered.

So, rather than join her partner who was currently doing expressive art on the hardwood floor of the jewelry shop she allowed the men with guns to slap a pair a tight bracelets on her and drag her away.

She had ink on her finger tips from the prints they pulled and she was thrown like a dog in the cage where she was currently sitting.

From her perch on the bench she was certain of one thing. If her partners were still alive when she got out she was going to kill them.

She tried to avoid killing humans but she would make an exception in this case.

“Katherine Fuller,” A voice intoned. She looked up to see a cop way past her glory days staring at her with a blank expression. The cop also held a pair of handcuffs. When the cop unlocked the door to her cell and put the familiar silver bracelets on her she didn’t try to resist. Fighting then would be useless.

She let the woman drag her down a few halls and into a room with a large mirror. Interrogation. The woman secured her to a table and left. Kate was about as overwhelmed with her surroundings as she was in the holding cell.

Luckily, she didn’t have to wait nearly as long for someone to enter. The door opened and in came a man who look worn and tanned in a suit tattered from age but grinned at her like she was the second coming of Christ.

She was thrilled at the thought that her presence filled someone with so much joy. It was like Christmas.

“I am Detective Carter. Have you been read your rights?” She nodded. He sat in the chair opposite of her and opened a file in his hand.

“Katherine Fuller,” He said, reading aloud. “Born May 12th 1996. Parents Jacob Fuller and Jennifer Fuller. Mother deceased. Younger brother Scott Fuller. Remaining family confirmed missing in 2014.” He looked at her.

“Did you know that your father was wanted for the death of your mother?”

Kate said nothing to that. He was trying to rattle her. Like a plain white room with a mirror and the mentions of her dead parents was the thing that would cause her to break. Hardly. The man was in over his head in this one. She wondered briefly what he would do if he came across the things that truly scared her. The thought was amusing.

He seemed to grow impatient at the fact the words hadn’t the effect he wanted to crack her bored poker face.

“Tell me Katherine where is your father and brother?” Carter tried again. He smelled like stale coffee and his teeth were stained yellow. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. Kate decided to throw the man a bone.

“Dead, I expect. Some more so than others.” The funny look on his face after that was almost worth the volunteering of information.

She might as well be honest. She was going to prison. What more did she have to lose?

 

“What do you mean by that, Katherine?”

She smirked, aiming to annoy rather than answer. It worked.

“Is your family dead?”

Nothing.

“Who killed your father?”

A memory unbidden crept behind her eyes and into her mind, transporting her back to a dirty labyrinth, glowing eyes and a stake that suddenly felt way too heavy for her to hold.

Her smirk faltered.

“Katherine?”

She refused to let her hands shake.

“Who killed your father, Katherine?”

She met the detective's eyes and smiled. “Why, I did of course.”

He looked flummoxed. That was not the answer he expected.

“Why?”

Kate’s grin grew sardonic. “Because he didn’t want to turn into a vampire. So I helped him out.”

His face looked like the conversation was ageing it years by the second. “So your brother,” He asked tiredly.

“Is a vampire as well. He didn’t oppose the change as much as my father.”

“Right. Are you a vampire?”

“Of course not. Your cops arrested me in broad daylight. Do I look like I’m on fire?”

He choose not to answer that. “Have you seen your brother recently, Ms. Fuller?”

“Haven’t spoke to Scott in years since he tried to bite me. Twice. Why, did he do something?”

“No, Ms. Fuller. We’re here about you. A nineteen year old daughter of a pastor from a small town in Texas who somehow managed to pull off a estimate of almost two hundred robberies, cons and grifts successfully in the past three years. You don’t even have a criminal record nor does anyone in your family. Now, tell me. How did you know how to do that? Where did you learn?”

“The devil taught me. Now you said estimate, right? Do you actually have anything on me that isn’t circumstantial?” Kate asked.

He looked at her disbelievingly, “We caught you coming out of a jewellry during an armed robbery carrying a gun and a pair of pliers. The security system showed tampering and your partner Miguel-who was the only member left standing-confessed that you were apart of his crew. That you were practically the ringleader of it all.”

Of fucking course he did. That little coward. She was going to kneecap him then kill him.

“I was coerced.”

“Really,” The detective said dryly.

“Did you see those men? They were like twice my size. I had no choice.”

“And of all the other evidence we have against you? Witness statements. Camera footage. Shell casings. You were coerced then, too?”

“You must have me confused with someone else.”

“Uh huh,” He said. He leaned forward to look her in the eye.

“I know about Salt Lake.”

Kate froze. Not on the outside. She looked perfectly serene on the outside, not moving so much as an inch.

“Your bloody prints were all over the crime scene and the way you cut up that poor man,” He whistled. “Gives me chills even thinking about it.”

“I had no choice.” She said quietly.

“We all have choices.”

“Not me.”

It had been late. Barely a few months after leaving Mexico. She stumbled out of a bar half drunk on cheap tequila and oblivious to the fact that some man had been watching her the whole time. He probably thought she was an easy target.  
He didn’t get to think that for long.

“He tried to rape me.”

“So a man tries to rape you-you being a seventeen year old girl at the time-and your first instinct was to gut him?”

“No, my first instinct was to cut off his head.” She remembered but instead answered, “Yes.”

“What the hell happens to a girl that makes that her first instinct?”

“A lot.”

“And the rest of it? You didn’t just kill the man, you sliced him up like a pig and strewed bits and pieces of him around the bar’s parking lot.”

How could she explain it? It was as if being attacked then triggered something. Turned of something in her head and suddenly she was back in the Twister. Fight or die. Only difference she could see was that the man’s body wouldn’t disappear no matter what she did. Before she knew it she was soaked head to toe in the man’s blood and the cops were on their way.

It was a miracle that she got away if she still believed in miracles.

“DId you know the man you killed was a high up in the Mexican Cartel? Many suspected it was a paid hit.”

Well, that was news to her. But it did explain the shootout she got into in Pasadena a couple of months later. Funny how things work out.

“Were you paid to kill Felix Rivera?”

“No.”

“Ms. Fuller-”

“I’m not a goddamn assassin! I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time like fucking usual,” She snapped at him feeling herself wearing thin. The conversation was becoming tedious. She couldn’t imagine going to trial.

Trial.

Prison.

She wondered if the Cartel would put a hit on her. Or any of the various other people she managed to piss off the the past few years. It was plausible. She had gained so many enemies that she could barely remember a time when she didn’t have them.

The irony was that she had always thought it would be a culebra that would finally end her. Fucking symmetry and all. Turns out it’s her own recklessness. It was hilarious.

“Look, Ms. Fuller,” Detective Carter was saying. “The point is we have more than enough to convince any jury.”

“I have absolutely no doubt of that, Detective.” Kate said sincerely. “But to convince them of what is the the real question.” She blinked, suddenly feeling drained. “I’d rather like my lawyer now.”

He nodded and stood up from his chair. “I believe that would be a good idea Ms. Fuller,” He told her.

But before he left the room he paused and looked at her.

Kate stared back. “What?”

“I’ve been chasing you for two years.” He hesitated. “You are not what I expected.”

She sighed. “I get that a lot.”

After a meeting with her public defender who had on an even worse suit than the detective she was returned to the holding cell for another few hours. It was nearing dusk by the time they decided to transfer her to county for the night. She hoped they had food there. She was starving.

She was loaded in a police cruiser and cuffed once more to her seat. It smelled like piss. Or maybe it was just the officers in front of her.

The two in the front as they drove bantered endlessly about the superbowl or some other such nonsense while she gazed out the window and tried to get a good impression of the outside world before she was locked away. Every minute counted.

Kate could barely make out anything in the dark so the fact that she didn’t notice the figure standing in the middle of the road until one of the officers screamed “Look out” was understandable.

The fact that she didn’t immediately try to escape the moment the car swerved and crashed into a telephone poll was less so.

Her head was fuzzy and she was pretty sure she was bleeding as she looked at the wreck. But she was alive. Probably. So were the cops it seems. She purposely decided not to think too much on what she was rooting for.

“What the hell was that,” The driver muttered sluggishly. He seemed to be more concerned with the state of his partner then her. They seemed to have taken the brunt of the crash. Good.

She was working on getting herself free when she heard it. Something that made her blood go cold and her heart skip a beat. Something that she hadn’t heard in years. Hissing.

“No. No. No. God, please no.” She prayed for the first time in years, moving frantically to free herself. Not again.

The cop in the passenger seat stirred. “The fuck was tha-” He began but was cut off as the door to his side of his car went flying. Something pulled him out. A strangled sound was cut off by a crunch.

“Not again.”

“Mike,” The driver screeched. He clawed at the door to get out of the car but his leg was broken and he couldn’t move. “Mike!” He yelled once more. He pulled out and cocked his piece.

He didn’t last the next minute.

He was still screaming by the time she got free. She didn’t waste a minute. A long shard of glass was clutched in her palm and cutting her skin but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t have time to. She was still wearing the cuffs. It didn’t matter.

There was no fucking way she would be taken down by the snakes without a fight.

She kicked open her door and was greeted with the cool night air that she couldn’t feel over her blood pounding. Fight or flight. All she saw was red. Or maybe it was blood. Who knew?

A culebra appeared in front of her face and she swung out with all her might landing a lucky blow that knocked him off his feet. She stabbed him through the chest and into the heart. He exploded into dust.

She had learned a long time ago that she would pick fight over flight every time.

A culebra tackled her from behind and she rolled with the blow and landed on top of it. She smashed her skull in what she assumed to his nose and attempted to break it’s grip. When that didn’t work she stabbed her shard of glass in the culebra’s crotch. That worked. She tried to stab him again but sadly she was thrown off and landed about ten feet away.  
There were three left that she could see. They were now approaching her from all angles. She couldn’t run if she wanted to. She wasn’t she she wanted too.

A thought broke through the furious haze that surrounded her mind. A hysterical, giddy thought.

“Looks like a culebra is going to end me after all.”

It was fucking poetry.

She wasn’t sure what blood was her’s and what blood was theirs. She wasn’t sure it mattered. She was covered in the shit. It was everywhere. Some was still leaking out of the cop's necks from where they laid motionless on the ground. Fantastic.

The culebras came closer. She was sure they agreed with the sentiment.

She launched herself at them. Or they launched themselves at her.

Everything went red.

Then white.

Then black.

* * *

 

“I’m sorry, Freddie. I just can’t keep doing this.”

“Is this because of Scott?”

“Yes and no. This is because of everything. I want something more than this life. This is pain and death and fighting monsters every day. And if I stay in it, I know it will kill me. Like it did with everything else good in my life.”

“...I hope you get far away, kid.”

“I hope so too.”

* * *

 

Kate awoke sprawled out on a bed in a place she had never seen before. She felt like she was hit by a truck. Everything was sore, blurry and groggy.

“One night stand gone wrong,” She surmised blearily and waited for the room to come into focus. The idea was plausible. It had happened before.

“I can’t believe you fucking did that without asking me,” A voice shouted.

“It wasn’t like there was many other options,” Another voice reasoned carelessly.

“Threesome?” She wondered, closing her eyes to try to block out the throbbing.

“Yes, no other options then sending your snake pals to attack a car in public and kill two cops. Not to mention rough up Kate. Excellent fucking plan, Richie.”

Kate’s eyes were suddenly wide open. Her last few hours became abundantly clear.

“Fuck, no.” She thought.

“What did you expect me to do, Seth? They were taking her to jail. You personally know how difficult it is to break out of one of those. I had limited time and a limited window to come up with a plan. Besides, you were busy.” Richie sounded pissed.

Kate struggled to sit up, trying to ignore the searing pain that swept across her body every time she moved. She realized that she was covered in bandages.

“Busy, Richard? It’s Kate. I would’ve gotten unbusy.”

The door to the room suddenly swung open as she was attempting to get to her feet and make her miraculous escape. In the door frame stood the two people people she thought she never would see again and most days hoped she wouldn’t. The infamous Gecko in their suits looking like they hadn’t aged a day since she seen them last.

“Pity,” The part of her that wasn’t frozen in feelings of dread and something else thought. “I wished Seth would be sporting some grey hairs and crows feet after Mexico.”

Richie smirked at her. Maybe he was reading her mind. Maybe he was just he was just happy to see her. Who the fuck knew with Richie.

“Katie, you’re awake,” He said cheerfully. “We have much to discuss.”

She narrowed her eyes, “What the fuck do you two want?” She asked vehemently. Richie looked surprised.

“What ever do you mean, Kate?”

“You’re a Gecko, you always want something.”

“True, but is that any way to talk to the person that saved you from a prison sentence?”

She thought back to the last thing she could remember before it all went dark. The attack of the undead. “That was-” She didn’t get to finish before her legs went out. Seth was at her side in a minute.

“Take it easy, princess. You took a pretty bad beating.” He murmured quietly and helped her into the bed

“Don’t ‘princess’ me. I’ve had worse.” She snapped at him. He look at her disbelievingly.

“You have three broken ribs, a previously dislocated shoulder, a sprained ankle and a fractured wrist. Not to mention the state of the gashes on your hand and head.” He looked at her seriously. “You tried to take on four culebras at once. You’re fucking lucky to be alive.”

Kate shrugged the best she could. “Like I said, I’ve had worse.”

Seth rolled his eyes, “Sure princess.”

Kate frowned as a thought came to mind. “Wait. Why am I alive. Thought for sure that was going to be my last rodeo.” She looked from Gecko to Gecko. They both looked uncomfortable.

“What is it?” She said cautiously.

“They were under orders not to kill you.”

“And whose orders would that be?”

“Ours.”

Kate was silent. Kate infact was silent for such a stretch of time that Richie took it upon himself to fill said silence.

“What do you know about the Nine lords, Kate?”

“Not enough and more than I want to.”

“Well, it’s a long and complicated story but Seth and I are one of them, now.”

“One each, or?”

“No, just one.”

“Uh huh.”

More silence.

Kate turned to Seth. “And you’re okay with all of this. Because the last time we talked you seemed pretty not okay.”

He looked away. “Yeah, Kate. I’m okay with this.” He told her in a patronizing tone of voice.

Kate looked back at Richie who had moved from his stance at the door and was now sitting in a chair next to the bed.

“So where do I fit into all of this,” She asked him.

Richie grinned. “Well as it turns out, Katie. There is a new prophecy and you are apart of it.”

“Right.” She said. She looked at Seth. “And you buy into this bullshit now?”

Richie made a hurt sound and Seth smirked.

“Sadly, princess, I do. Comes with the job.”

She sighed. Even after all this time and all the shit she went through it was still so easy to get pulled in by the Gecko brothers. It was their superpower. They were flames that drew in moths by the ten folds only to strike them down. They couldn’t help it if they wanted to. It was just what they were.

Only this time she wasn’t sure exactly what she was.

“Okay. I’m humoring you. What exactly am I doing in the prophecy?”

Seth looked at her with a gaze that looked amused but lacked humor. “Well, Kate. It seems you are the key to end the world.”

“Well, there goes my weekend.”

“Enough about the prophecy,” Richie suddenly said. “We have hours to pour over that later. What I want to know now is about what Kate has been getting up to for the past few years. And why so much of it involves the police.” Richie looked at her and grinned and Kate wished for a moment that that culebra took off her head. Anything could be less painful than this.

“I personally had a chance to look at her record and I have to say I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Record,” Seth said slowly. He looked like a cartoon lightbulb suddenly came on over the top of his head. “I heard you were getting arrested but I didn’t know for what.”

“Armed robbery, it seems,” Richie said cheerfully. Kate fantasized shooting him for a moment.

“And many other things! The highlights of which include: robbery, armed robbery, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, theft, grifting, and a very interesting decapitation of a mexican drug lord.”

He looked at her, “Thanks for that by the way. He was screwing around with some of our shipments. I was meaning to have him taken care of.” He looked back at Seth. “Should I go on? Because there is so much more where that came from.”

“Please don’t.”

Seth looked at her with a smile playing around the corner of his lips. “Armed robbery?”

“Of a jewelry store.” Richie chirped.

“How did you get caught,” Seth asked, sounding curious.

Kate looked him in the eyes, “I made the mistake of working with partners.”

She had never been one to pull her punches.

“Well it’s a good thing you did, Katie-Cakes. We never would have caught you otherwise.” Seth Gecko wasn’t one to pull them either

“You should be proud, Katie.” Richie said to her, pulling her attention away from Seth. “It took Seth and I decades to amass a record as long as yours. You did it in three years.”

A smile came to her lips unbidden at that comment. Like always, Richie had a habit of pulling out her best qualities. “I’m not sure that is something to be proud of, Riche.”

“Of course it is! You are officially part of the family now. You’re practically an honorary Gecko.” He declared.

“My utmost hope and dream.” She replied dryly.

“Yes it is. Now that reminds me. Are you hungry? I’m starved.”

“I’m sure Kate doesn’t want what you have for dinner, Richie.” Seth told him from Kate’s other side.

“And I wasn’t offering, Seth.” He bickered back. “Gloria,” Richie called.

The doors opened again and a woman apparently named Gloria came in with heaping trays of food. Her stomach reminded her how hungry she actually was and she immediately grabbed something from the cart. Gloria left as quickly as she came.

Richie and Seth were fighting over something. Kate immediately interjected after a minute to share her opinion. She was thus entered into the fight. The three of them fell into a pattern that felt as old and familiar as time itself to them.

She snapped at Richie over something then laughed at something Seth said, only to take Richie’s side the moment the conversation turned. It was natural and magnetic, the three of them. She didn’t know it yet, but she was finally home.

 

 

(Kate wasn’t a moth drawn in by the Gecko’s light. She was never a moth. She herself was a flame and flames are meant to smolder and burn.

 

Why else do think they got on so well?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is exciting! I've had this on my mind for ages. I hoped you liked it and had as much fun reading it as I did writing it! Please tell me what you think and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! I hope you all have a fucking fantastic day! :):):)


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